Impossible Things
by bananasrokk
Summary: Donna finds a book that has strange similarities to her dreams. She decides to investigate, and soon finds herself starting to remember a life she never though possible... but at what cost? My theory on how Donna could come back. COMPLETE. R&R!
1. All of Me

**Hello hello hello! Welcome to what is basically my never-gonna-happen theory of how Donna could come back. Some fluff, some angst, a little something for everyone. Enjoy!**

**PS: I own Doctor Who. APRIL FOOLS! I totally don't. Wish I did, though. That'd be pretty cool...**

**Anywhoo, on with the fic. Allons-y, Geronimo, and all that...**

_You used to captivate me by your resonating light  
Now, I'm bound by the life you left behind  
Your face it haunts my once pleasant dreams  
Your voice it chased away all the sanity in me_

_These wounds won't seem to heal, this pain is just too real  
There's just too much that time cannot erase_

_Evanescence – My Immortal_

_

* * *

_

Donna Noble had reached the conclusion that she'd finally gone mad. That the nightmares had caught up with her and driven her bonkers. It was the only plausible explanation as to why she was standing in the rain outside of the house of an author she'd never met of a book she was inexplicably obsessed with.

It had all started when she'd passed out on Christmas morning. She'd been out to the pub the night before, and must've had a few too many because she'd woken up the next day in her mum's house with Shaun (her fiancé) and her mum sitting over her looking all worried. Ever since that day she'd been having the strangest dreams. Odd shapes, things that looked sort of like talking squids, giant spiders, a flying police box, and a man... a man whose face she never saw, but always radiated a deep and terrible sadness. Often, the dreams terrified her and she would wake up in a cold sweat. But other times, they were happy ones; a large group of people in a cavernous, circular room, laughing and hugging one another like old friends, or in other dreams finding the mysterious man after a long and terrifying separation... She didn't know where they came from, or what they meant, but they were more vivid than any dreams she'd ever had before.

But anyways, life went on. She and Shaun got married, and on their wedding day, her Grandad and her mum had given her a lottery ticket. It had seemed strange at the time, since they'd already got her something and they seemed strangely emotional when they gave it to her... but she'd won. Her, Donna Noble the Temp had actually won the bloody lottery!

She and Shaun had used the money to buy a house of their own, a nice flat in London, and a couple cars, and had given a nice chunk of it to Wilf, but had put the rest away for a rainy day (Shaun's idea, of course... all Donna wanted to do was spend it on private jets and expensive clothes) and continued on with life as normal. Donna was working as a secretary at a law firm, Murdoch and Reynolds, in London and Shaun worked for a programming company nearby. They both took their cars to work every day, until one day Donna had woken up and found her tires slashed.

"Why the hell would someone do something like that?" she's asked Shaun furiously over breakfast.

'It's alright, love, I'll get the police on it, and we'll have it figured out soon enough. But it's going to take a few hours replace the tires, so you may have to take the Tube."

Donna had dozed off halfway through the sentence. His mention of the police had brought back to mind the friendly sight of the blue police box in her dreams, and for a moment, she was lost to the world.

"... Donna?" Shaun asked concernedly.

"Yeah, love." Donna said, snapping out of it. "Sorry. Just a bit... freaked out over this tire slashing business. I'm so tired these days..."

"The nightmares again?"

"Oh, no, no it's nothing. I'm fine. It's nothing." she assured him. He wasn't convinced.

"You can take the car, if you like, I'm fine with the subway."

"No, no, of course not, love, I'm okay. The lottery hasn't made me too posh for public transit. You take the car, I'll be fine."

She stopped for coffee on the way down; there was a cute little cafe just across the street from their flat. Waiting in line, she had the strangest sense of being watched. She glanced around casually, but didn't see anything out of the ordinary. No one was even looking at her. She told herself to calm down, that just because some random punks had thought it would be cool to slash her tires didn't mean there was anyone out to get her. Her imagination was so overactive these days, what with the nightmares and all. She got to the front of the line, paid for her coffee, and walked with it down the street, and down a grungy, slippery staircase into the London underground.

It was busy, and it smelled, but she couldn't help but to be pleased with the familiar chaos. She'd spent years taking the Tube to work, and she was glad that she was still the same old Donna, even if she was a millionaire now. Smiling to herself, she paid for a token and made her way onto the train, taking the most open seat she could find. Shortly after, a pretty blonde girl sat down beside her.

"Hello," the girl said with a charming smile.

"Hi." Donna replied. Strange, people never spoke to each other on the subway.

"I'm Jen." she said.

"...Donna." She really didn't want to continue this conversation. People who spoke to random strangers in subway cars usually turned out to be weirdoes, and Donna really didn't want to deal with any more rubbish today. Unfortunately, the girl kept talking.

"Big, this place isn't it?" she said enthusiastically, looking out the window behind them at the crowded platform.

Donna just nodded this time, trying to hint as politely as she could that she didn't want to be having this conversation. Jen didn't take the hint.

"I've never been to London before. I'm from... well, far away. You've probably never heard of it. I'm looking for someone..."

"Oh..." Donna said. _Please just shut up for the rest of the ride. Please. _

"Ah well. At least I've got a good book to keep me occupied."

Unwillingly, Donna craned her neck to see the title of the book the young woman was holding. _A Journal of Impossible Things,_ by Verity Newman. "Hmm...' she said."I've heard about that. Is it really as good as they say?"

"It's brilliant." Jen gushed excitedly. "It's about this nurse, Joan Redfern, who met this bloke in 1913, a man named John Smith. Except he wasn't a man... he was an alien pretending to be a human. He fell in love with her, but he had to leave her in the end. Apparently it's a true story."

Images flashed through Donna's head as the girl spoke, strange creatures and names... a cavernous, dark library, running from the shadows, driven by an inexplicable fear... "Ma'am?" Jen said gently. "Are you alright?"

"Fine." Donna said, snapping out of it. Two daydreams in as many hours... what was wrong with her? Trying to appear nonchalant to the whole thing, she asked the girl, whom she was beginning to think was just a nice young lady instead of some nutter, if she really believed all that rubbish about aliens.

"Of course I do!" she laughed. "You can't _not_ believe in them with all that's going around these days. I mean, how about that hospital just disappearing a few years back? And those cute little... whatever-they-were-'s popping up, something to do with that whole weight-loss pill scandal? Not to mention all that went on with the President of the States getting assassinated by those flying ball thingies..."

"They proved that _that_ was just a hoax, remember? Something thought up by the Saxon administration? I knew the whole time that man was a nutter... he was just too good to be true. Abusive, too, huh. Wife shot him shortly after the President was assassinated. Apparently, she'd had enough of him, too."

But even as she spoke, the former PM's image flashed in her mind, but not just one. Hundreds of them, everywhere. The face of Harold Saxon looking hungrily at her. Other things too. The image of a woman, and the name _Jones_ flashed through her mind. Thousands of small pale things being lifted up into the sky around the Adipose Industries building. Hanging on for dear life as she hung in midair next to the Adipose Industries building, waiting for someone, for her guardian to save her. She pushed the strange images back and tried to focus on what Jen was saying.

"... And just about every Christmas for the past four years, something new happening. That star one year, and then the Titanic almost taking out Buckingham Palace the next, then all the stars going out a few months ago..."

"Tell you what, love, that wasn't aliens, that was the alcohol getting to everyone's head. You sound exactly like my Grandad, going on about ETs and aliens and all that rubbish."

Jen shrugged. "True or not, _Impossible Things_ is still a good read."

Donna laughed. "Yeah, well... sci-fi's just not my thing I guess."

They lapsed into silence for a bit, then the train slowed. Jen looked up. "This is my stop."

"Bye." Donna said.

"See ya." Jen said with a bright smile. Then she walked away and was lost to the crowd.

Only after that did Donna realize that she'd left the book on the seat next to her. She grabbed it and stood up, looking around for the girl, but she was gone. She sat back down, the book still in her hands, as the train started up again. But shortly after picking up speed, it stopped abruptly, grinding to a halt and jarring all the passengers in the train. Not half a minute later, the conductor's voice came on, saying that they were experiencing some technical difficulties that may take a while to fix.

Donna groaned, and looked down at the book again. She didn't like sci-fi, but the girl had described it as sort of a romance as well, and it looked like she'd be stuck down here for a while, so why not? She opened the book and began to read...

By the time they got the train working again, she was hooked, wrapped up in the romance of Joan Redfern and the enigmatic John Smith. The story was told from the point of view of Nurse Redfern, through her real-life journal entries, but some chapters were laced with excerpts from the notebook of John Smith himself. And as much as Donna loved the romantic aspect of Joan's writings, she truly related to those of Dr. Smith.

The excerpts from his journal were the ones she truly coveted, and she often found herself skipping much of the plot to read what he had written. He described his feelings of emptiness, like there was something hugely important that he was missing, an inexplicable feeling that she had felt too, since a while before the nightmares started. Like there was some gaping hole in her chest that she hadn't even realized was there until a little while ago. A deep sorrow that she couldn't explain, and couldn't get rid of.

But what mystified her the most were the dreams he wrote of. Creatures whose descriptions matched the ones that she saw in her own nightmares. Creatures of metal with deadly lasers and no emotions except those of hatred, and shrill, terrifying voices that shouted a word that she could never quite make out. They scared her, and Smith wrote that they terrified him too, a deep fear that he couldn't quite explain. The places were familiar, as well. A safe place, a large, cavernous circular room that she was often in, but only in the good dreams. It was... home. That was how Smith described it. And that was certainly how it felt when she stood there in her dreams. A place where she belonged, a place she loved and never wanted to leave.

The parallels between what she read from Smith's diary and what she saw every night should have frightened her, but it didn't. It soothed her. Mystified her a little, but soothed her to know that someone, somewhere, had experienced the same longing and nightmares that she did now. She could almost hear Smith's voice in her ear as she read his words, speaking to her, telling her about the terrible and wonderful things he'd seen and done in his dreams. Which was bizarre, of course, because he had lived almost a hundred years ago so she hadn't the foggiest how his voice sounded. Still, she connected to him like she hadn't connected to any character in a book (and possibly anyone she'd met in real life) ever before.

And as she read, more images flashed in her mind. A computer screen full of smiling faces. Old friends. And someone standing behind her; she could tell just by his presence that he was her guardian. _Doctor. Doctor._ The word flashed briefly, then again. It seemed important, urgent. The title... or was it a name... flashed continuously. This was new, and it seemed vital. _Doctor._ Doctor who? She saw diamonds shimmering in the sun through a fifteen-foot thick window. She saw a giant wasp zipping through the air towards her. She saw the sky, where the Earth should have been, but it was gone. She saw her guardian, running down an empty street towards a woman who also seemed familiar. She saw him fall, taken down by one of the deadly metal creatures. She saw a thousand different images, some that she'd already seen in her dreams, some new.

Her head began to ache, a slow, painful throbbing. She suddenly realized that the book was causing this sudden onslaught of waking dreams, and she shut it and tossed it away from herself. The train rolled on, and no one in the crowded car had even noticed her panic. She was sweating.

After a few minutes, she caught her breath. The throbbing in her head had subsided... but the aching in her chest had come back. She hadn't realized it had even gone until now. It was as if the emptiness in her was filled when she read the words of John Smith, when she experienced the strange dreams. Was that it then? Her choice, between head and heart? Because her brain was telling her to close the book and never open it again. But her heart, her heart ached more than it had before. The gaping hole had been filled again, briefly, and now the emptiness seemed to consume her. The book was like a drug, she hated it, but needed it.

She picked it up again and turned it over in her hands, reading the "About the Author" section on the back page. There were three entries:

_JOAN REDFERN: Born in 1884, she became a nurse at age 25 and worked at Farringham School for Boys, where she met John Smith in 1913. After his departure, she met and married Maxwell Newman in 1916 and they had five children. She died at age 98 in 1982. Joan's diary is her only work ever to be published._

_JOHN SMITH: Little is known about the enigmatic Dr. Smith, other than the fact that he worked as a Maths teacher at Farringham School for Boys for three months in 1913. _

_VERITY NEWMAN: Born in 1973, she spent the first nine years of her life listening to her great-grandmother's stories about the dashing John Smith. She found Joan's diary in the attic shortly after her death in 1982, and found Smith's accompanying diary almost a decade later among her grandmother's things. Her infatuation with the tragic love story lead her to get it published in the spring of 2008. She dedicates this novel to her great grandmother and, of course, the mysterious Dr. Smith. She says she believes he is still out there, watching over her from the stars._

Donna's head began to ache again. Doctor Smith. The name being whispered urgently in her head. _Doctor. Doctor._ There had to be a connection. This book, this man, and her dreams were all tied together somehow. She needed to talk to Verity Newman.

* * *

**Aaaaand, there's chapter 1. The rest of them are all up, and you'll see in a bit why I posted them all up at one. Oh, and if you're wondering about the chapter titles, it's because of an extended period of time in the Grey's Anatomy fandom (all the episodes of the show are named after song titles) and it rubbed off on me, so I do that quite alot. But they're all really good songs that I would recommend you all to chack out. But I digress. Give me a review, love it or loathe it!**


	2. Headlong

"And you're rushing headlong you've got a new goal  
And you're rushing headlong out of control  
And you think you're so strong  
But there ain't no stopping no there's nothin'  
You can do about it  
There's nothin' you can do  
No there's nothin' you can do about it "

~Queen, Headlong

____

She skipped work that day, not caring if she was fired. She was a millionaire, what did it matter? All that she cared about now was finding out what her nightmares were, and what connections they had with this bloody book. She switched trains at the next stop, heading towards a library instead. This brought more flashes of waking dreams; skeletons that walked, creatures hiding in the shadows, waiting to devour her, and a mysterious woman who had some connection with her guardian... she put them aside. She had more important things to concentrate on.

She went to the first computer she saw with internet access, and searched "Verity Newman". After clicking through various pages of book reviews, and "Is it Real, or is it Fake" debates, she found it. 22 pages in, a website with the address of the author. It was about half an hour away, not available by train. She'd have to take a cab, which would cost a small fortune. But she had the money and was willing to pay if it could explain the nightmares.

________

Donna was surprised, to say the least, when she stepped out of the taxi in front of the house of Verity Newman. She paid the cabby and thanked him, and he drove away. She ran for the house, covering her head with her jacket to protect her hair from the rain that had begun to fall while she was en route.

As she rushed up the stairs to the front porch, the thought crossed her mind that she had truly gone mad. After all, it was the only plausible explanation as to why she was standing in the rain outside of the house of an author she'd never met of a book she was inexplicably obsessed with. For a second, she considered chasing the cab down, turning around, and pretending she'd never had this little fit in the first place. But the empty feeling was still there in her chest, now so intense that it hurt to even breathe, and she knew that if she went home now, she'd go to sleep tonight and be plagued by the nightmares. This was the only hope she had of finally figuring things out. Like a diver poised to jump over the banks of an unfamiliar, rushing river, she took a deep breath and a leap of faith.

She rang the doorbell.

Verity looked just like her picture on the back of the book. Blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, and pleasant features. She looked surprised, to say the least, to see someone standing on her doorstep. And who in their right mind wouldn't be surprised to see a total stranger showing up uninvited to their home in the middle of the day like they had some right to be there? Trying to ignore the fact that the woman probably already thought she was a nutter, Donna smiled brightly, trying to channel Jen, the stranger from the subway, whose chattiness had started this whole mess.

"Hi, there, Ms. Newman." she said, extending her hand. "Donna Temple-Noble. Huge fan. May I come in?"

Verity looked at her hand as if it were covered in bugs. "Um... I'm sorry?"

Donna just looked at her. This was harder than she'd thought. No matter, it was too late to turn back now."I'm Donna Noble. I have some questions about your book, and-"

"Hold on just a second," Verity said, holding up both hands to stop her. She looked a little frightened. "I'm sorry, Ms... Noble, was it? I don't know why you're here, I don't know what you want, and I certainly don't know how you got this address, but I don't make a habit of inviting strangers into my home, even if they profess to be my number one fan. So if you don't mind, please go back to wherever you came from!"

And she began to close the door, right in Donna's face.

Donna panicked. She was so close, she couldn't give up now. She tried to shout an apology, or an explanation, or _something_ remotely useful, but just as she opened her mouth, she had another waking dream. A single word, whispered in her mind. So, in lieu of any rational phrase, Donna Noble blurted out, at a woman who already thought she was crazy, the word "Gallifrey!"

And, surprisingly, Verity opened the door again. "What?"

Donna froze for a second, wondering what the hell a Gallifrey was, and why it had made Verity suddenly listen. "I... I said Gallifrey."

Verity's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Where did you hear that word?"

Donna tried to think something up, then realized the truth was really the only option. "I... I don't know." she took a breath, then continued. "But... I do know that it has something to do with... with him. John Smith." Another, often-heard word repeated itself in her head, and she threw it out, hoping for the best. "The Doctor."

Just saying the name had a profound effect on both women. Donna felt relieved, like she'd gotten some great burden off her chest. She felt light, and happier than she had even a few seconds ago. She was still confused about what was going on, but knew she was one step closer to figuring out what was going on. On the other hand, her head had started throbbing again. Verity paled visibly, in shock at hearing what the other was saying. Without a word, she opened the door fully and stepped back, letting Donna in.

She stepped lightly, carefully, as if Verity was some deer in the wilderness that might bolt at any moment. Or in this case, call the police. That thought brought on another flash of memory - she'd decided now that she must call them memories, although whether it was memory of her dreams, or memory of things that really happened. This time, it was the blue police box, flying through space with the Earth in tow. This was by far the most absurd of her dreams so far... but also the most clear.

"Come in, Mrs. Noble, and have a seat."


	3. Memories

_Together in all these memories,  
I see your smile.  
All of the memories I hold dear.  
Darling you know I'll love you,  
Til the end of time._

__

All of my memories keep you near  
In silent moments,  
Imagining you here.  
All of my memories keep you near,  
In silent whispers, silent tears.

_~Within Temptation, Memories_

_

* * *

  
_

Verity's house was bright and comfy. Donna sat politely on a comfy chair, and Verity perched on a similar one across a small table.

"Umm.. would you like some tea, or something?" she asked awkwardly. "Sorry. I'm not exactly used to..." _Having weirdoes show up at your house in the middle of the afternoon?_ Donna thought, but Verity opted for a much more tactful way of finishing up her sentence. "...This sort of thing."

"Yeah, me either." Donna said, trying to get it across to the other woman that she really didn't go around doing this every day. She wasn't crazy. Just really, really confused. "And no thanks to the tea. I'm fine. Really. I'm fine."

It was an expression she'd been using so often for so long that she nearly choked on the words as she said them. She was tired of being "fine." She wanted to be more than that, she wanted to be whole again. She wanted to find that piece of her that had been missing for so long. So, without hesitation, she launched into her story. Verity listened raptly as Donna told of the dreams she'd been having, and the emptiness, and the strange man in her mind, whose face she never saw. She spoke of the feeling she'd had lately, of being watched, and how her tires had been slashed and she'd been forced to take the subway. She told of the chatty and brazen Jen, who'd initiated the conversation about her novel, and how when Donna had read it, everything fell into place. She told Verity everything that had happened, up until she'd showed up on her doorstep.

"...And when you closed the door, that word, Gallifrey, it just popped into my head. Same as... as the Doctor. " Donna winced as her head throbbed again at the name. "What... what do they mean? Are they.. do they have some sort of connection to your book? To him? John Smith?"

Verity was silent for a long time, looking at Donna, but seeming to stare through her, back to when she was a little girl sitting on her Grandma Joan's knee, listening to her speak of the mysterious stranger from the stars who had swept her off her feet. The room was dead silent for a minute, with nothing about the ticking clock and the mystery hanging between the two women. Then, Verity spoke.

"Gallifrey." she said in a low voice. "That's where Gran always said he'd come from. Gallifrey. The lady, Martha, she mentioned it when she told him what he was..."

Donna's eyes widened for a second. "Martha Jones?"

Verity nodded. "Yes. That was her name. Jones. I'd forgotten. She was his servant; or so his story went. She showed up at the school with him. She was the one who had the watch..."

"He wasn't John Smith, was he? I mean, really?" Donna whispered.

"No," Verity said. "He was the Doctor.... That was what Gran called him, in the end." She looked up at Donna. "I've never told anyone that. It wasn't in the book, or on any interview I've done about it. How did you know he was called the Doctor?"

There was another flare in Donna's head. She closed her eyes tight shut, ignoring the burning and trying to remember what she'd seen in her dreams. She opened them and looked at Verity, who was thoroughly mystified by now. " D'you have it still? The original journal? The... the Doctor's copy?"

"Yes. Would you like to see it?"

"Yeah," Donna managed to choke out from behind the lump in her throat. The sudden emotion shocked her. Why did she feel so deeply about a man she'd never known?

Verity nodded and left the room for a minute. When she returned, she held a small back journal, worn brittle by time. _Time. _Another word in Donna's aching head. She disregarded the pain as Verity placed the book in her trembling hands. She opened it, and before she even started reading, saw images. Sketches. John Smith, or the Doctor, or whoever he was, had sketched the things he'd seen in his dreams.

Here was the terrifying metal creature. A circular base, with little spheres dotting the outside. A domed head, with what looked like an eyestalk protruding from it. And what looked like two arms, one a claw and the other, a deadly laser. It was the exact same one that she'd seen in her dreams, except there'd been more. So many more. The fire in her head got hotter, and she flipped ahead a few pages.

Here was the safe place. The inside of it, at least. It was huge, and warm, and friendly. This was the main room, the one where she spent the most time in her dreams, although she knew there were others, too. This room had a grated floor, and huge, towering bits of coral supporting the ceiling. Her guardian would sometimes throw his coat with expert accuracy onto one of the coral pieces, she remembered. In the middle of the room was a round control panel, with various switches and buttons that Smith hadn't drawn. But Donna knew they were there. They had been, in her dreams. And in her dreams, she had known what they all did, and how they worked. But only for a little while. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth against the pain building up in her mind, and flipped ahead one more.

Here was a picture of a woman. Donna knew she was blonde, even though the sketch was black and white. She was smiling, a smile that Donna had seen before on an empty street in her dreams. This was a woman that her guardian had loved. He had loved her so deeply, and so much that in the end, he'd left her a piece of himself, so they could be together forever. The image of a beach flashed across her mind, blurring the yellowing pages of the diary just for a moment. _Bad Wolf. Bad Wolf. Rose Tyler._ This time, her head burned so hot that she actually cried out and dropped the book.

In an instant, Verity was at her side. "Donna? Are you alright?"

"Fine," Donna gasped, putting a hand to her head. She looked at the black book, lying next to her on the chesterfield. Despite the pain she knew she'd experience, she reached out and touched it, needing to connect in some small way with the man who'd drawn these images so long ago. She sighed. "I... I just wish I could see him. I wish he was still around so he could explain why I've been seeing all these things."

"I've seen him." Verity said in a low voice.

Donna's head snapped up. "What?"

"I've seen him. John Smith." At Donna's incredulous look, Verity launched into her own story. "It was a few weeks ago, at a book signing in Cardiff. The store was almost empty, and he came up with a copy of my book for me to sign. He asked me to make it out to the Doctor. I looked up, and I knew it was him. He asked me if Gran was happy in the end. I told him yes and asked if he was. He just looked at me and walked away." Verity blinked suddenly, and looked at Donna as if she was waking from a dream herself. "I couldn't believe it at first, but then I remembered Gran telling me that he was a traveller, through time and space. He asked her, actually, to come with him. To be his... companion, I think she said. She declined, of course. The school was being rebuilt, they needed her there, and the man she'd fallen in love with wasn't there anymore, anyways. They went their separate ways in the end."

Donna blinked. "How... how did you know it was him, just by seeing him? The Doctor, I mean." The pain in her head was almost unbearable, but she fought through it, needing answers above all else.

"Gran drew a portrait of him in her journal. I remembered her showing it to me when I was little. It looked just like him, except he was dressed differently in real life and his hair was a bit longer. But it was him. I knew it."

Donna's throat tightened when Verity mentioned the picture. "Do you... do you have it here? Can I see it? Please?"

Verity nodded, and left the room again, leaveing Donna in breathless suspense. She knew that if she could see his face, just _see_ it, it would explain everything. She sucked her breath in sharply between her teeth, blinking her eyes to try and ease the headache, which was a hundred times worse than any migraine she'd ever had before. She rubbed her temples and waited for Verity to return. After what seemed like forever, she did, with a small red leather book in her hands.

All the air seemed to go out of the room as Donna held the book. This would give her the answers she needed, she was sure of it. After months of sleepless nights and self doubt, she was finally going to understand what was going on. She was finally going to find what was missing.

She turned the pages with trembling hands, hardly daring to breathe for fear that she would suddenly wake up, or Verity would snatch the book from her and tell her to leave. But she didn't. Instead, she softly told Donna that the portrait was on the back page of the book. It was as if she'd spoken from the end of a long tunnel. Donna could barely hear her voice, the pain in her head was so intense. But she pressed on. She was so close. Finally, she got there, to the second last page. She took a deep breath and turned it.

And she looked at his face. And it was as if she'd never forgotten him.

This was him. The Doctor. John Smith. Her guardian, the one from her dreams. The man she owed her life to, who everyone on the planet owed their lives to. The lonely god, the Oncoming Storm, the Doctor. The Doctor.

She saw him, and she remembered. The sketch wasn't perfect, but it was an accurate representation of him. The Doctor, her Doctor, her long-lost friend. Joan had gotten the hair right, and the nose. The mouth, set in a secret sort of smile. And the eyes. The eyes, Donna could tell, Joan had worked the hardest on, and she'd gotten them perfectly. The warmth, the compassion, the love there. She remembered his warm brown eyes, filled with tears as he'd wiped her memories to save her life. The Doctor Donna.

And the memories came flooding back, all of them. Everything she'd done since showing up in the TARDIS, the wonderful TARDIS, on her wedding day three years ago. She remembered the fun, the laughter, the horror, the pain, the sadness. The remembered how wonderful he was, and how much she'd loved him. Not romantically, but like a best friend, or the brother she never had. And remembering was worth the pain.

Oh, the pain. The fire in her head rose to a fever pitch, and her eyes filled with tears. Her hands gripped the diary of Joan Redfern, keeping it open at all costs. Looking at the Doctor's face through the excruciating pain in her head. She needed something to hold on to; she needed him now more than ever. She understood now why she was burning up; because she'd understood right before he tried to save her. His voice, now a long-ago memory, echoed in her burning mind.

_"There's never been a human-Time Lord metacrisis before. Do you know why?"_

_"... Because there can't be."_

That was it. Her human brain couldn't contain all the Time Lord knowledge she possessed. She was dying, and she knew it. She knew it, and despite all the information that she'd just unleashed running around in her head, she could do nothing to stop it. So she gripped the book like a lifeline and looked at his face, because she'd always imagined she would die with him at her side. Her vision blurred and her legs gave out, her body surrendering to the inferno in her mind. She fell to the carpet with a groan, but kept hold of the book, kept looking at the Doctor's face, because she'd lost him too many times before. She wouldn't let go now.

Just when she thought it couldn't get any worse, the fire blazed hotter, killing her slowly and painfully. She struggled to keep her eyes open, but soon it was too much. Her eyes closed. She prayed for release, and eventually, it came. Everything was overcome by darkness.

It was over.


	4. Missing

_Even though I'm the sacrifice,_  
_You won't try for me, not now._  
_Though I'd die to know you love me,_  
_I'm all alone._  
_Isn't something missing?_  
_Isn't someone missing me?_

_-Evanescence, Missing_

* * *

Verity had been mystified by the woman since she'd shown up on her doorstep, spouting words she knew nothing about, but had to do with John Smith. Words that neither Verity nor Joan had ever told anyone else but each other, that only the Doctor would have known. Donna had seemed so sweet and kind and lost that Verity had had to take pity on her. She had given Donna what she needed, and watched the emotions flash across her face. She knew from her grandmother's stories how wonderful this Doctor was, the love that his friends had for him. A part of her had never believed that anyone could be _that_ perfect, but she had liked the stories anyways.

But meeting someone who somehow knew him had opened her eyes to the reality. She had watched the raw emotion flow across Donna's face as the unlocked the memories of that perfect stranger, saw the love and pain and devotion and joy in her eyes when she'd seen his face.

And then she'd collapsed.

"Donna!" Verity cried, quickly crossing the room to the other woman's side. "Donna, are you alright? Speak to me!"

But Donna had only groaned and clutched the book to her, clinging to it as if it was her only hope. She writhed in pain on the ground, and Verity was frozen to the spot in horror, petrified, unable to move to phone for an ambulance. Donna's breath came in shallow, ragged gasps, and then had stopped completely. Her head fell back, and she was still. She was gone.

"No!" Verity shouted. Completely forgetting the phone, she turned back to Donna and listed for breathing, for a heartbeat, for any signs of life. Nothing. Verity's eyes filled with tears, tears for a complete stranger. One rolled down her cheek, then another, then another. And soon her whole body was shaking with sobs, for a woman she wouldn't know from Eve, but whom she had a feeling was vitally important, and deserved her grief and respect. "Oh, Donna.... I'm so sorry."


	5. Come Clean

_Let's go back_  
_Back to the beginning_  
_Back to when the earth, the sun, the stars all aligned_

_'Cause perfect didn't feel so perfect_  
_Trying to fit a square into a circle_  
_Was no life_  
_I defy_

_Let the rain fall down_  
_And wake my dreams_  
_Let it wash away_  
_My sanity_  
_'Cause I wanna feel the thunder_  
_I wanna scream_  
_Let the rain fall down_  
_I'm coming clean, I'm coming clean_

_-Hillary Duff, Come Clean_

_

* * *

  
_

_"I knew it...Acting all innocent... I'm not the first, am I? How many women have you abducted!?"_

_In the darkness; the deep, impenetrable darkness, Donna heard voices. She heard her own accusation thrown at her supposed abductor when she'd shown up on the TARDIS in her wedding gown that fateful day. And from there, she relived every second she'd spent with the Doctor, at warp speed. A million images a second, she'd re-seen, her brain rewiring the paths that the Doctor had blocked off in an attempt to save her life. In fact, her brain was more than rewiring. It was rebuilding. It was regenerating._

_All the memories, the names, the faces, it all came rushing back to her in the dark. All the Time Lord knowledge that she'd acquired, too. It was all coming back. Her mind was regenerating, but it was a Time Lord mind now, with plenty of space for the knowledge that had almost killed her, as well as for her human thoughts, emotions, and imagination. What was it she'd said to the two Doctors back in the Dalek crucible? Oh, yeah. "The universe has been waiting for me!"_

_Everything came back, from the start to the very end. Within moments, she was reliving those last seconds with the Doctor. The end of her life as she'd known it._

_"Oh, Donna Noble, I am so sorry. But we had the best of times... the best.... " he'd said, looking at her with such tremendous sorrow, she couldn't bear it."Goodbye..."_

_She'd begged him not to. She'd begged him to let her stay, but he'd had no choice. She had tried anyways. "No... no, please. No, no, no!"_

_He put his hands on either side of her head. She felt him shaking. And then the memories had disappeared, one by one, taking away not just the Doctor Donna, but the woman she had become. _

_The woman who was now coming back to life. _


	6. No Boundaries

_Here I am still holding on!_

__

With every step you climb another mountain  
Every breath it's harder to believe

_You'll make it through the pain_

_Weather the hurricane  
To get to that one thing_

_When you think the road is going nowhere  
Just when you've almost gave up on your dreams  
Then take it by the hand and show you that you can_

_There are no boundaries._

_-Kris Allen, No Boundaries_

_

* * *

  
_

Verity stared down at Donna's body, still too in shock to call 999 or any other authorities. Although she'd only known the woman for about an hour, Verity felt empty inside. She picked herself up off the ground, getting the strength to start making her way to the phone.

Suddenly, she saw something move out of the corner of her eye, near Donna's lifeless body. _In_ Donna's lifeless body, to be precise. Her head was glowing. Really glowing, emitting a soft, golden light. It was pure energy, Verity knew that much. Life force. Joan's voice echoed in here memory from so long ago, when she'd told her about how she'd lost John Smith. It had always been Verity's least favourite part of the story (she much preferred the ones that described his quiet, friendly manner and peculiar skills and quirks), but it was the one that Joan always described in the most detail. The one that was still with her, the memory untouched by the years that separated her from her almost lover.

_"And when he opened it, love, oh, it was beautiful. It was this soft golden light, like a cloud, that puffed out of the watch, and just sort of... headed right for him. Like it belonged with him, and I guess it did, really. He breathed it in, and then he sort of... jolted. Like something had started up again inside him. And when he opened his eyes... oh, Verity, it just wasn't my John anymore. He was someone else now, this... this Doctor. And that light, that... stuff that was in the watch... that was what did it. He explained it to me later. It was his.. his self, that's how he put it. His Time Lord self, concealed in the watch for months. Oh, how I hated it then, Ver. It killed the man I loved. But now I can see that what it really did, was save him. It saved us all."_

This was the same stuff, she realized, that her Gran had described coming out of the fob watch. The life force of a Time Lord. Life force with the ability to save someone. To heal.

She stepped back and watched, as Donna's eyes flew open. They, too, were glowing, brighter than anything else. She sat up off the ground and breathed a long sigh, with the energy coming out of her mouth, too, and floating into the air before disappearing.

And then she shook her head, blinked, and when she re-opened her eyes the light was gone. They were back to their usual blue, but there was something different about them now. It took Verity a second to get it, but then it hit her like a ton of bricks.

She didn't look lost anymore.

When Verity had opened the door to her, she'd looked sad, and lonely and lost, and a little mad... like she wasn't sure who she was, but knew the answer was right in front of her. Now, sitting on the carpeted floor, the look was gone completely. It was like she had completely changed in the moments that her heart had stood still. She looked around, blinked a couple more times, and smiled widely.

"Brilliant." she said. "Completely brilliant." Her smile got even wider, and she laughed giddily. Then, just as suddenly, she seemed to remember that there was someone else in the room. "Verity!" she cried, standing up and walking over to where the other woman was frozen, dumbstruck, still staring at the bit of carpet Donna had just vacated. "Oh, God, Verity, I'm sorry. I must have scared the hell out of you. Are you alright?"

Verity nodded mutely, looking at Donna as if she were a trout that had suddenly started speaking perfect Swahili. After a moment, she regained her voice. "I'm... I'm fine... are you?"

"Me? Oh, I'm fine. No! Not fine. Verity, I'm great. Never been better. Haven't felt like this in... oh, in ages. I feel... wonderful. Fantastic. _Molto bene_." she giggled. "Oh, God, I've missed that."

"Missed what, exactly?"

"_Molto bene. Allons-y._ All those little things he used to say when he got excited."

"You... you mean John. The Doctor."

"Yeah." She breathed a happy sigh. "Oh, Verity. He _is_ real. He's so real, and wonderful, and amazing, and.... and I knew him. I travelled with him for a year. He was... well, one of my best friends, if not the best. I remember now. All of it."

Verity still looked confused and rightly so. "How?"

"Well, it's a long story..."

"I've got time. You've dragged me this far into it, so why not get the whole story, I figure."

Donna laughed, and complied. "It started about eight or nine months ago, I guess you could say. You remember... all the planets in the sky? And those... things, that invaded. The metal ones, from the journal. They're called Daleks, actually. Really bad news. Anyways, it started then. The Doctor, he got shot by a Dalek. Very nearly killed him, except Time Lords... they do this thing, when they're about to die. It's called regeneration. Total cellular rewrite. The body heals itself, then changes into a completely new form. It's part of how they live for so long. Anyways, he started to regenerate, waited just long enough so his body could heal, then concentrated the rest of the energy onto the hand in the jar."

"I'm sorry?"

"Oh, yeah. That. He lost it in a sword fight on Christmas day a few years ago, with a Sycorax. You probably remember. Everyone up on the roof? Yeah, that was him who got us out of that. But d'you want to hear the rest of the story or not?'

Verity raised her eyebrows. The change was incredible. Since waking up, Donna had visibly grown more animated. She was speaking faster, using her hands more, she even seemed a little less pale than before. Even her tone of voice had changed. There was something snappy about it, almost like the tone of voice her Gran had used when she described how the Doctor - not John Smith, but the real Doctor - had spoken. It was like she was a whole new person... or rather, the person she used to be. The person she was meant to be. "Of course I do." she said.

So Donna told her everything. The single heartbeat in her head, calling her to touch the glass jar brimming with regenerative energy, the explosion when she made contact, the metacrisis, the clone, and how they'd broken into the Crucible at the last possible second. And she told Verity about the second metacrisis when she'd been hit by Davros' laser, releasing the Time Lord knowledge into her head. And she told her of how they'd towed the Earth back to its rightful place, smiling as she remembered all the fantastic people she'd forgotten since that day; Sarah Jane Smith, Jackie and Rose Tyler, Mickey Smith, Martha Jones, the dashing Captain Jack Harkness... even Luke Smith, Gwen Cooper, Ianto Jones, and K-9. She remembered them all, and fondly recalled the fact that the happiness of that short trip on the TARDIS had broken through into her subconscious mind even during those eight months of darkness, in the best of her dreams.

And then her voice grew sad as she told Verity the end of her story. How the Doctor Donna couldn't exist without killing her, and how he'd been forced to wipe her memory to save her life.

"I was dying, I knew it and he knew it. He thought... he thought that wiping my mind of every trace of him was the only option. I begged him not to, I knew how pointless my life would be without those memories, but I couldn't make him change his mind. I would have died with those memories rather than going on without knowing all the fantastic, wonderful, brilliant things we'd done. But he wanted to save me. In killing the Doctor Donna, he thought he was saving my life. He thought that I'd die if I remembered... and he was half right."

"But why didn't you die?" Verity asked, still confused.

"Well, I did." Donna said, her tone suddenly light once more. "You saw me. What happened was exactly what the Doctor thought would happen if I ever remembered. My mind, it couldn't handle the knowledge. It burned, it died... and I died with it. But my mind... repressed or not, it had become a Time Lord mind. It regenerated, just before I died. It's their natural defence against dying, almost a reflex, although they can suppress it if they so desire. But anyways, my mind regenerated, leaving my body intact. And it regenerated into a proper Time Lord - or I guess I should say Time Lady - mind. One that can handle all these memories, all this knowledge. You see? Like I said, absolutely brilliant!"

Verity nodded slowly. "This all seems so surreal."

"I know. Does take a bit of getting used to."

"...So what are you going to do now?"

Donna thought about that for a long moment. "Well... first thing I need to do is get home and tell my Grandad. He knows the Doctor, too, and he'll be thrilled to hear it's all back. Must have been so hard on him, keeping all that secret from me for so long. After that... well, I'll try to find the Doctor." Her tone darkened. "If only so that I can kick his skinny arse from here to the bloody Medusa Cascade for wiping my memory like that!"

Verity raised her eybrows at that. Donna continued.

"And after that... I don't know what. I have Shaun now, so I can't just go running off with him to another dimension, or whatever the hell it is he wants to do. I have a life here now. But... I just need to _see_ him again. To let him know I haven't forgotten him." She looked up at Verity, her eyes full of compassion. "He's been through so much... I need to be one less person he needs to mourn."

There was a long silence, in which both women stewed in their own thoughts. Then Donna stood up and suggested she leave. " I've got a cab waiting. It'll be about an hour from here to Chiswick, but what the hell. I've got all the time in the universe, and a head full of memories to keep me busy, eh?" She smiled brightly at Verity, but her face fell when she saw that the other woman looked a bit teary.

"What is it?" Donna asked gently.

"It's just... Before he left, when he asked Gran to be his... well, whatever you were to him, I guess... she refused. She said no, quite rudely too, she told me.... and she always regretted leaving him like that. And she never got a chance to see him again."

"I'm not surprised." Donna said. "It's not like him, to re-open old wounds like that. He's got so many, poor thing. Seeing Joan again would have just been too hard on him." she looked intently at the other woman. "Verity?"

'Yeah?"

"There's something important that you need to know."

"Yeah?"

"I've got his mind. So some of his... some of his stronger emotions slipped through. And I know this, I can promise you this... The way they left things, didn't matter to him. Even as the Doctor, he loved your grandmother so much. It killed him to leave her, as much as it probably killed her to let him go."

"Really?", Verity whispered.

"Really." Donna said.

Verity's eyes were shining with tears. "Thank you."

Donna just smiled gently. "No. Thank you, Verity. You have no idea how much you've given back to me. I- I can... it's like I can _breathe_ again. I know who I am, and what I've done... Verity Newman, you've given me my life back. I owe you so much."

Verity hugged Donna. "We'll call it even, then."

They walked to the door together. It had stopped raining, and fittingly enough, the sun was coming up. The cab was waiting in the driveway. Donna walked slowly down the front steps, then looked back at Verity.

"One more thing;" Donna said. "If I do find him, after I'm finished kicking his scrawny butt for getting me into this mess, I promise I'll bring him here. I think he'd like to meet you properly. You seem to have a lot you'd like to ask him."

That was it. A tear rolled down Verity's cheek. Too overcome to speak, she waved Donna off as she stepped into the cab, and it pulled out of the driveway.

"Good luck." she whispered after the life-changing stranger.


	7. Home

_Well I'm going home,_  
_Back to the place where I belong,_  
_And where your love has always been enough for me._  
_I'm not running from._  
_No, I think you got me all wrong._  
_I don't regret this life I chose for me._  
_But these places and these faces are getting old,_  
_So I'm going home._  
_Well I'm going home._

_-Daughtry, Home_

_

* * *

  
_

The ride to Chiswick was long, and Old Donna would have found it incredibly dull. New Donna, or more accurately, Real Donna, had a lot to think about in the hour it took. She went through trivial facts in her head that she didn't know an hour ago, like exactly how the engine of the car she was in worked, or the square root of pi to ninety places. She could have done more, but she got bored with it after ninety. And when the facts weren't enough, she went through the new memories. Everything she'd done with the Doctor.

There were the good memories, like standing in the kitchen of a 1920's mansion as the Doctor, clearly in pain, gestured wildly that he needed a shock. How the hell was she supposed to know that's what he wanted? Evidently they didn't teach basic charades at the Academy... She remembered first stepping out into the Ood Sphere, how cold it had been, and how he'd rambled on about human life for at least three minutes before realizing she'd gone back inside the TARDIS for her coat. And how bewlidered he'd been by the fact that Martha, who'd supposedly fancied him greatly, had moved on and gotten engaged. Clueless about the ladies, that was her Doctor.

Then there were the not-so-good memories. She remembered hugging him when he stepped off that rescue shuttle on Midnight. How shaken he looked. Sick and pale and scared, more vulnerable than she'd ever seen him before. Having his knowledge didn't help her deal with that particular memory much either; as she'd told Verity, some of his stronger emotions had slipped through into her mind, and she now knew exactly how terrified he'd been kneeling on the floor of that shuttle. She remembered how he was trembling when she held him, and how long it had taken him to stop. That he hadn't slept well for weeks after.

And then there were the ones that she'd really like to forget. Like how the Doctor looked naked. _That_ was one thing she'd be only too happy to have erased again. It was like walking in on her brother in the shower would be, if she had a brother. Awkward, and embarrassing. Not that he'd seemed too concerned about it at the time. Then again, what's the big deal about your platonic best friend seeing you naked when you're in the middle of a fleet of Daleks? Really it was all about perspective. Still, it would be her luck to be in the TARDIS when it happened. She was sure that Rose, or Martha, or Jack, or even Sarah Jane would have been all too thrilled to see the Doctor au natural, but of course, that was the way her luck went. Stupid metacrisis...

Mulling over these thoughts got her all the way to Chiswick, in front of the house where she grew up. She paid the cabby, and tipped him generously (why not, she had money to spare!) before slamming the door shut and walking towards the house, sneaking in the front door and silently making a Thermos of tea for Wilf. She didn't want to alert Sylvia to her presence, as all she really wanted to do was get up on that hill and tell her Grandad that she was back.

As she made her way to the back door, Thermos in hand, she passed her living room. And yet another memory crossed her mind, almost missed because she'd been too busy texting at the time to see what was right in front of her. It was a memory from just after the mind wipe, of the Doctor sitting in this very room, on the couch at the wall opposite from her, and introducing himself as John Smith.

"Oh, you have _got_ to be _kidding me_..." she whispered furiously. "I am _so_ going to kill him when I get my hands on him..."

He'd actually had the nerve to sit there in her house and look her in the eye after wiping her mind clean of every trace of him. He'd seen her as the hollow shell she'd been for almost nine months, and not said a word about it. He'd probably parked the bleeding TARDIS in the driveway! _How could she have missed it_?? She really didn't know who she was more mad at... the Doctor, or herself for being so daft. She decided it was easier to be mad at him.

With a sigh, she left the living room, and headed out the back door towards the hill.

* * *

Wilfred Mott stood on the hill where he kept his telescope, looking up at the sky on Donna's behalf. It pained him every day to think of the fact that she'd never remember the wonderful things she'd done with the Doctor. The Doctor, the man who'd died for Wilf all those months ago.

He still remembered it clearly; the Doctor's struggle to hold on to life. How he'd ranted and raged about all that he could have done, about the unfairness of it all. But he also remembered the sincerity and love in his eyes when he'd said those last few words. "Wilfred... it would be an honour."

And then how he'd pressed the button, freeing Wilf and releasing upon himself a fatal dose of radiation, collapsing to his knees, then to the floor and dying in his place. And he remembered being told by the Doctor about how he'd have to change his face soon, to escape the death that should have come then and there.

Every day since then, Wilfred had looked up at the sky, searching for that telltale glint of blue that would tell him that his friend and saviour was still up there, alive and well. He never saw anything for certain, but sometimes, if everything was still and silent, he could almost hear that little blue box of his materializing somewhere. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.

He'd only really seen the Doctor once after the day he'd died; at Donna's wedding. He'd looked the same, but Wilf had later realized that was because he'd popped in before he'd changed. It had been the same day for him, although for Wilf it had been months after. He remembered the Doctor looking over his shoulder at Donna in the middle of a gaggle of her friends and new family, looking the happiest she had since... well, since the Doctor had wiped all those memories from her. He remembered the terrible sadness in his eyes that he could never talk to his friend again for fear of triggering something. But he'd put on a brave face and given them his wedding gift for Donna, a winning lottery ticket. And then he'd gone back into the TARDIS without looking back, because it just would have been too painful.

That was the last time Wilf had seen the Doctor, but he liked to think the Doctor saw him sometimes. Which was why diligently, every day, rain or shine, he trudged up the hill with his Thermos full of tea and watched the sky, trying to remember on Donna's behalf. And as if on cue, a voice sounded behind him.

"Hey, Gramps!"

Wilf spun around. Donna was standing behind him. Funny, he hadn't heard her coming. The girl was usually so clumsy, she'd trip at least once on her way up the hill and he'd hear her muttering curse words under her breath. But he hadn't noticed her this time at all. He guessed it was because he'd been so lost in his memories of the Doctor.

Just seeing his granddaughter so soon after thinking about her long-forgotten friend and the sacrifices he'd made to save both her and himself broke Wilf's heart. But he put a smiling face on for her benefit and asked her how she was doing. "I heard about the tires. Probably just some daft teenagers, love, nothing to worry about. But are you alright?"

Donna smiled widely and almost laughed. "Oh, Grandad, I can honestly say I've never been better!"

Wilf just raised his eyebrows and smiled. Then he looked back up at the starry sky before reaching for the Thermos full of tea she'd brought up. It was cold up here sometimes...

Donna looked up at the sky, too. She hesitated for a second, then spoke.

"So, Gramps... You seen the TARDIS up there lately?"

When Donna had spoken, Wilf was in the middle of sipping some tea from the Thermos . But at the sound of the all-too-familiar word, he literally spat it back out.

Donna almost laughed as her grandfather spun around again, his mouth open like a fish out of water, fear and shock registering on his face.

"B-but... Donna... what did you just say?"

"I said the TARDIS, Gramps. You know, little blue box? Bigger on the inside? Makes a funny noise when it materializes? God, I loved that thing. Had some good times in the TARDIS, I did, before that skinny git went and wiped it all out of my head."

Wilf was almost speechless. "Donna... you can't. No... he said-"

"That it would kill me? All the Time Lord knowledge? Well, it very nearly did. But that's just the thing, Grandad. Time Lord mind. Absolutely brilliant. Regenerated as soon as it stopped working. You see, the human heart is pumped by its own electrical impulses. That's why your heart can keep beating even after you're brain dead, in the right circumstances. And lucky me, my heart kept beating long enough for my mind to regenerate. Brought everything back with it. Everything."

Wilf was still looking at her with a hint of fear.

"Really, Gramps. I'm fine. My head's not going to explode, that already happened. It's over. I'm... I'm back."

"Back..." Wilf repeated softly.

Donna nodded, her face slowly breaking into her widest smile yet. "I'm back!"

"Oh, Donna!" Wilf cried, hurrying over to his granddaughter and hugging her tightly. "You have no idea what it's been like, these past months, love. Keeping all that from you... all you did, all you were a part of..."

"It's alright, Grandad. You don't have to keep secrets anymore. I remember it all. Everything. The TARDIS, and the Adipose, and the ATMOS... and the Doctor. Oh, Gramps, he was the one I missed most of all. I'm mad as hell at him, yeah, but God, I just wish I could see him again!"

"Well what d'you think I've been looking for every night up here?"

Donna grinned. "No signs of the good ship yet?"

"Not a one."

She sighed, looking up into the vast sky again. The sky she'd once travelled through with her best friend by her side. Suddenly, a stroke of inspiration came to her, a by-product of her new and improved mind.

_Call her. Call the TARDIS._

"Can I do that?" she wondered quietly.

"Do what?" Wilf asked. Donna hadn't realized she'd said the words out loud.

"Sorry," she said. "I think... I think maybe I can call her here."

"What? Call the TARDIS, like some sort of dog?" Wilf said, puzzled. "It's just a ship, it can't hear you."

She smiled dazzlingly at him. "_Au contraire, mon grandpere,_" she said, picking up one of the Doctor's habits of using other languages in moments of giddiness. "She's not just a ship. She's a TARDIS. See, they're special. They grow and learn with their chosen Time Lord. They've got a telepathic link. The TARDIS can change her interior layout at will, depending on what the Doctor, or whoever he's travelling with at the time needs. She's connected to his mind. And since I've got all his knowledge, she's connected to me, too. And I think I might be able to get her to make a little detour to Chiswick!"

"You're not pulling my leg?" Wilf asked. "You can actually call the TARDIS?"

Donna pointed to herself. "Doctor Donna, remember? Now, if I'm gonna do this right, I need to concentrate..."

Wilf backed away from her a few feet, and she closed her eyes, instinctively reaching out with her mind for something that felt like home. After a few moments, she got it. It felt... TARDIS-y, that was really the only word to describe it. It felt warm and friendly and homey... it would have brought tears to her eyes if they hadn't already been closed. She reached out to the ship, not needing to communicate with words. She told it everything that had happened, and to her surprise, the TARDIS responded. Not with speech or coherent thought, but with feeling. It was ecstatic to find out that she was back, and it had not forgotten her. If she'd been able to, the TARDIS would be hopping up and down with excitement right now. Donna smiled and almost laughed. She asked the ship to come to Chiswick, but that it not tell the Doctor where it was headed or why. She got a mischievous glee from the TARDIS, who was thrilled to be able to pull a trick on her master like that. If she could talk, she certainly would have been saying something along the lines of; _Oh, he's gonna love this..._

Then the link closed and Donna opened her eyes.

"Well? Did it work?" Wilf asked eagerly.

Donna nodded. "She's coming. She should be here soon."

"The Doctor's coming."

"He's coming."

Wilf paused for a second, as if wanting to tell his granddaughter something, but unsure if it was the right thing to do.

"What is it, Gramps?"

"Something you should know, Donna..." he started hesitantly. "He's... he's going to... look different."

"What?"

"His face. He's most likely changed his face."

Donna gasped. "No way. You mean he regenerated? While I was....?"

Wilf nodded. "He said he was going to die. I saw him, at Christmas. In that cafe."

"While me and Shaun were shopping?"

Wilf nodded.

"You went to a bleeding cafe with him? I was just round the corner? Gramps, we could have come within _feet_ of each other, and-"

"And you wouldn't have recognized him." Wilf finished for her. "You'd seen him before, right after he... well, you know. His face would have meant nothing to you, Donna." He didn't miss the pain that flashed on her face when he said that. "I'm sorry. But it's true. Anyways, he told me that... he'd been told he would die soon."

"I remember that." Donna said faintly. "The Ood. They told him his song would end soon."

Wilf nodded. "He didn't know if it would be... for good, or just the one body. He was... Oh, Donna, he wasn't looking good. He was so tired...."

"But, did he...? I mean, are you sure he... died?"

He nodded again. "I'm so sorry, my love. But I did something... something stupid, and he went and died in my place."

Donna's hand came up and covered her mouth. her eyes had filled with tears. "But did he...?"

"He regenerated, yeah. I think so, at least. I haven't seen him since the wedding-"

"Hold on!" Donna said, suddenly back to her old self. "Are you talking about my wedding? My wedding to Shaun?"

"Yeah."

"So you're telling me that he came to my wedding? He was there? He- Oh my God!"

"What is it, Donna?"

Her eyes were shining. "He gave you that lottery ticket, didn't he?"

Wilf nodded, a smile forming on his face.

"Oh, that is brilliant! I'm still gonna kill him, though."

Her face darkened, enough so that Wilf could see she wasn't joking about how mad she was. But before he had a chance to ask why, he heard an all-too-familiar whirring sound.

"Oh my God." Donna said, her face a mixture of emotions. "It's coming! He'll.."

"Donna, are you alright?"

Unable to speak, her throat tight with suppressed emotion, she nodded.

That was when she saw it. The light at the top of the police box. It flashed just for a second as the whirring got louder and louder. Then she saw it again, but more of it this time, before it disappeared. The next time, she saw the whole thing, and it stayed there. The TARDIS. The real, live, honest-to-God TARDIS had just materialized not twenty feet away from her on the hill behind her home. The Doctor was here. The Doctor, who wouldn't look the same or sound the same... but would still _be_ the same. Her best friend, who yeah, she hated at the moment, but that did nothing to change the fact that he was her best friend. Her best friend who was here. At last. At last. Nothing happened for a long time. Donna held her breath. Then, the blue door slowly opened...


	8. Where'd You Go

_Where'd you go?  
I miss you so,  
Seems like it's been forever,  
That you've been gone,  
Please come back home..._

_-Fort Minor, Where'd You Go_

_

* * *

  
_

The Doctor shepherded Amy Pond back into the TARDIS.

"Apres vous, Mademoiselle." he said in a sing-song voice.

"Oh, shut it." Amy snapped.

She wasn't usually like this, it was just that he'd made the mistake of taking them to a planet in the midst of a revolution, where she'd been kidnapped by a band of rebels who had mistaken her for the queen of the planet, and then tried to kill her. It had taken the Doctor only a matter of hours to find and rescue her, but by then she was in an irreversible state of general grumpiness. He knew from his experience with gingers that it would be best to just leave his newest companion alone until her mood improved marginally.

He sighed as she stalked past him and towards her room. He loved Amy, true, but in many ways she reminded him of a younger version of Donna, whom he rarely allowed himself to think about, as it broke his hearts every time he did. Now was such a time.

Shaking his head as if to clear the unwanted thoughts from it, he busied himself planning a nice, safe trip to ease Amy's temper. But as he walked towards the console, the TARDIS lurched violently, and he was nearly thrown across the room. Shortly thereafter, Amy emerged, livid.

"What in the bloody hell are you doing, Doctor?" she yelled.

"I don't know! I'm not doing it!"

"What do you mean, you're not doing it?"

"She's just decided on a destination herself. She's completely shutting me off, I can't tell where we're headed!"

"Well what are we supposed to do?"

"...Hold on."

About half a second after that, the TARDIS shook again, and both the Doctor and Amy clung on to whatever they could.

"Geronimo!" the Doctor shouted, as Amy screamed loudly.

The ride was about two minutes, from what they could tell. Two terrifying and confusing minutes for both passengers. But then the ship halted abruptly, sending them both flying.

"That... is... it." Amy said. "I'm going to my room, Doctor. Have fun facing whatever's out there on your own." And with that, she stalked back to her room, leaving a bewildered Doctor lying in a heap on the floor.

"What was all that about?" he murmured, not knowing himself whether he was talking to Amy or the TARDIS. He picked himself up off the ground, brushed himself off, he started out the door.


	9. My Life Would Suck Without You

_'Cause we belong together now, yeah_  
_Forever united here somehow, yeah_  
_You got a piece of me_  
_And honestly,_  
_My life would suck without you_

_-Kelly Clarkson, My Life Would Suck Without You_

_

* * *

  
_

He didn't know what he'd expected to find when he did so; an unfamiliar planet, a platoon of Daleks, or worse, the Master with a large gun, but he certainly wasn't expecting what he got:

A lonely hilltop in Chiswick. A familiar, lonely hilltop in Chiswick. He knew this place. He'd seen it before. And he knew the man who watched the stars up here every night all too well. The man who was standing about ten feet away from the TARDIS, looking mystified and strangely elated.

"Wilf?" he called softly. "Wilfred Mott?"

Wilf looked at him strangely. The Doctor couldn't read his face.

"Wilf, it's me. It's the Doctor. I know, I look different. I had to... to change. You remember."

Wilf nodded slowly. "I may be getting on in the years, Doctor, but I'd know the man who saved my life anywhere."

The Doctor smiled. Good old Wilf. For a moment, he felt a fleeting glow of happiness. But the crushing grief set in again when he realized the danger that he was putting one of his best friends in just by being here.

"Wilf... why did you call the TARDIS here? No... _how_ did you call the TARDIS here? Only a Time Lord with a strong connection to her could do that."

Wilfred shrugged, barely concealing a grin. "Wasn't me."

"What d'you mean? Why else would she choose to materialize in Chiswick? _I_ certainly didn't send her here. D'you realize the danger we're putting... her... in just by my being here."

"You don't have to go talking about me like I'm not here, you know. Didn't they teach you manners at the Academy, Space man?"

The Doctor spun around so fast, it was almost a blur, his face a mask of terror as he recognized the voice. The fear ripped through him as he realized that he was about to kill his best friend. _No. Please, not Donna. Not now._

The he remembered that he looked different. There was nothing about him that she'd recognize. Apart from the TARDIS, of course. But that had a perception filter on it. She wouldn't see it unless she knew it was there, which of course, she couldn't possibly. He assured himself there was nothing to worry about at the moment, except for his possibly breaking down at the sight of her.

"Hello there." He smiled politely through the pain of seeing her for the first time in months. "I'm Mr. Smith, I'm a friend of your grandfather's. I was just leaving. Nice meeting you, Miss Noble."

Donna's features darkened as he tried to hurry back to the TARDIS and make a clean getaway.

"OI!" she called. "You get back here, right now, Doctor!"

He turned again, eyes wide and frightened. She knew who he was. She would die. He'd effectively just killed his best friend. "You... you know who I am?" She heard the tremor in his voice. She saw the fear in his new eyes. But she was so overwhelmed with eight months of repressed frustration she didn't even care.

"Of course I bloody well know who you are!" She shouted, causing both the Doctor and Wilf, who had been expecting a joyful reunion, to jump. "You can go around changing your face all you want, Alien Boy, but it's not gonna change who you are!"

Panicking, his whole being ablaze with pain and terror and premature grief, he rushed over to where Donna was standing, mind racing, trying to think of some way he could save her. Nothing came. It was too late. He grabbed her shoulders, but much to his surprise, she smacked him away.

"What-"

"You. Stupid. _Git!"_ she hissed furiously, punctuating each word with a slap to his arm.

"But, Donna-"

"Don't 'but Donna' me, you twit! I can't believe you!"

"What?"

"I said forever, I wanted to fly on the TARDIS with you forever, but you couldn't be having any of that, could you? Oh, no. You had to go and wipe my mind. Is that how you always get rid of us, or was I the first one you tried that nonsense with? What, when we don't get sick of you or sucked into another bloody dimension you've got to take matters into your own hands, it that it?"

"Donna, are you alright?" he asked, still scared for her.

"Oh yeah, I'm fine, thanks for asking!" she said, sarcasm dripping from her tone. " 'Course I'm fine, no thanks to you!"

The Doctor looked from Donna, who looked very much like she might hit him again, to Wilf, who looked calmly amused by the spectacle. He could only assume that this all meant that Donna was okay, but how could she be? He knew that her mind couldn't handle all the Time Lord knowledge it had gotten in the metacrisis. He knew it would burn if she ever remembered him, their close call at Christmas was proof of that. So how was she standing in front of him, knowing who and what he was, yelling at him like she was back to her old feisty self, but still alive and well? It didn't make any sense. He opened his mouth to try and ask her what had happened, but then she looked at him in a way that effectively shut him up while she ranted. He stepped back a few feet, so that he was out of hitting distance, while she yelled.

"Where d'you get off poking round in my head like that? Trying to _save me_, yeah, I know... but you told me, you said to me that this had never happened before! So how did you know what would happen? How did you know it would be permanent? You weren't THINKING, that's why. You don't think these things through. You go rushing into these situations without thinking, and you always end up getting hurt! And yeah, I know, at the time it always seems like the right thing to do, but you can be wrong you know, you alien git! You can be so utterly, magnificently, dead wrong that you almost go and mess up my life! Do you even realize how... how pointless it all was? I went around for almost a year with this huge bit of me missing, just because some know-it-all Time Lord decides that what's best for me is to take away who I am! Eight months, Doctor! Eight bloody months! And yeah, now I've got a time Lord mind, I can see eight months isn't much to you, but it was to me. The better part of a year, walking around like some amnesiac who'd lost something but couldn't remember what. You could have waited! You could have tried to save me some other way. But oh, no. You had to test out your little hypothesis on me. You. Bloody. GIT!"

She stopped abruptly and took a deep breath, seemingly calming herself down. The Doctor looked at her.

"Finished?" he asked softly.

Donna was silent for a second, then breathed, "Yeah. I think so."

A smile crept slowly over the Doctor's features, the first genuine one in months. "You're back, then?"

Donna grinned and nodded slowly. "So back."

"Well isn't that wizard?" he mocked jokingly.

"Oh, shut it, Space Man. And get over here!"

He stepped towards her slowly, as afraid something still might go wrong, or perhaps worried she'd hit him again. Donna wasn't having any of that. She almost sprinted the short distance between them, throwing herself into his arms. She'd missed hugging him, although it was rather strange this time. He wasn't as skinny as he'd been before, but other than that, it was like she'd never left. He wrapped his arms around her so tight, she almost couldn't breathe, but she didn't care. She was back here, with the Doctor, and everything was right in the world again. What she was feeling right now... it was like what she imagined a blind woman would feel, miraculously cured and staring at a sunrise for the first time in years. She was half-laughing, half-sobbing. So was he.

"Oh, Donna. Donna Noble."

"God, you have no idea how much I missed you."

'You're one to talk. The TARDIS hasn't been the same since you left."

Donna laughed and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, as if you don't have some other girl in there right now."

'You know me too well."

"Not shacking up, are you?"

"And I thought you knew me. Of course, we're not! Mates only, that's the new rule. You remember, don't you?"

"Like it was yesterday. Everything." she laughed breathlessly. "God, it feels good to say that."

She pulled him away from her and held him at arm's length, looking him up and down. He got it immediately.

"What do you think?"

"Well, I'll miss the old hair..." she said.

He frowned a little. Still so self-conscious about changing bodies.

"But at least you've got some meat on those bones now. Look, no paper cuts!"

The Doctor just rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up, Donna. Ah, well. It was worth the change." He smiled over Donna's shoulder at Wilf, who he'd never seen looking happier.

"And hey... at least my skinny spaceman is still out there, somewhere in a parallel universe. That fantastic hair didn't go to waste after all."

The Doctor laughed and shook his head. "You know, for all those months, you haven't changed a bit! Well, except for the marriage. A Racnoss free wedding, for once. Congratulations!" he said, hugging her again.

"Yeah. Thanks for the lottery ticket by the way. Although, would it have killed you to come up and say hello?"

"I thought it would have killed _you_." He replied. Then his new face grew solemn again. "I am sorry Donna. I thought I was doing the right thing-"

"I know you did. You were upset anyways at the time, and of course you assumed the worst. I can't blame you for that. It's fine, really. All in the past, now."

The Doctor opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, the TARDIS door creaked open and Donna saw a young woman of about 19 peeking out. She cocked an eyebrow and looked at her old friend again.

"She's a bit young for all this, don't you think? I mean, Martha was one thing, but she looks like she's still in high school. Although..." she looked him up and down thoughtfully. "I suppose the same could be said for you. What is the deal with you lot? Do you just get younger every time you regenerate? Like some freaky alien version of Benjamin Button?"

"Doctor?" the girl sad timidly. "Are you there?"

"Yeah, right here, Amy."

"Oh!" her eyes adjusted to the absence of light, and she caught sight of him. She stepped out of the TARDIS and looked around, then rushed up to the Doctor and hugged him. "Oh my God, I am so sorry about that. I was a complete cow before, and all I could think of was that you were going to go get yourself killed and I'd just be in there all pissed off at you and-"

"S'alright, Amy." He grinned. "Been having a great time out here. Catching up with old friends and all. Oh, I should probably introduce you. Amy Pond, this is-"

"No, no, wait! Let me guess!" Amy said, squinting at Donna. "Is this.... Rose?"

Donna burst out laughing, causing Amy to jump a little, then look a tad wounded. "S-sorry about that, love, but... Rose? Seriously?" she chuckled again. "No, not quite. You'll know Rose by the fact that she's at least three or four years younger than me, blonde, and dragging a skinny clone around with her."

"Oh, she was blonde, was she?" Amy said with a small smile.

"Aren't they always?" Donna grinned back. Amy chuckled. "Anyways, I'm Donna."

Amy actually took a step back and covered her mouth with her hand. "No way. Donna Noble. _The_ Donna Noble? You're kidding me. You have got to be kidding me. I'm meeting Donna flipping Noble in person!"

Donna was stuck halfway between flattery and being freaked out by the Doctor's newest companion. "What, he... talks about me?"

"Hardly ever!" Amy said, with the same huge grin and admiration on her face. Donna raised her eyebrows. Amy realized what it must have sounded like. "No, no! I mean... it's a good thing."

"That he never talks about me?"

Amy nodded. "Yeah. He missed you. If you ever came up in conversation, he'd get all quiet and this... haunted look would come on his face for a second."

"Oh yeah... I used to call that the Rose face." Donna chuckled.

"Oh, he's got no problem chatting about her." Amy said. "It's you. I've travelled with the Doctor for about six months now, and I know that it's the ones he doesn't mention that he loved the most. 'Cause he missed you, see? He'd get all depressed and closed off whenever I asked about you. But I got enough that... well.... weren't you not supposed to remember any of this? Didn't he... wipe your memory or something?

Donna shook her head. "Yeah, I did lose it for a while there... but I'm better now."


	10. Time After Time

_If you're lost you can look and you will find me  
Time after time  
If you fall I will catch you, I'll be waiting  
Time after time_

_-Cyndi Lauper, Time After Time_

_

* * *

  
_

Watching his two friends getting acquainted, the Doctor smiled, happy to see them getting along, then looked thoughtfully at Donna "But... how _did_ you remember? I mean, I know how it worked, but what triggered it? Was it- was it the Master showing up at Christmas"

"If you're talking about all the creepy Harold Saxons running around, then no. Although that was what started the nightmares."

"Nightmares?"

"Well, dreams, I guess. Dreams about what we'd done, every night. It was my memories, trying to break out in my subconscious. Damn near drove me nuts, until I read that book."

"What book was that?" Amy asked.

"_A Journal of Impossible Things_ by the lovely Verity Newman." She looked up at the Doctor, who looked as though he'd seen a ghost. "I believe you knew her great-grandmother."

"Joan..." he whispered. "Yes. I remember. I met Verity once, at a book signing, right before I..."

"Yeah, I heard." Donna said brightly. "Verity remembers too. Apparently, you were all brooding and enigmatic, and I said '_What? No, that's certainly not the Doctor I know'-_" Amy giggled at the sarcasm, but the Doctor remained serious.

"You met her?"

"Well, I had to track down the author of the book, didn't I? She was the one who did it, in the end. She showed me your diary, well, John Smith's diary, and it brought everything back."

"But you shouldn't have noticed the book. I was careful, I embedded perception filters in your mind to disguise the TARDIS, my face, anything that would have reminded you. I wasn't taking any chances with my best friend's life. You shouldn't have had any interest in it."

"Well, I wasn't, until I got stuck in the subway with the book and this girl-" she broke off with a gasp and her eyes grew wide.

"What is it? Donna? What's wrong?" the Doctor said urgently, going over to her again and taking her arm. She was silent for a moment, looking dazed, and he and Amy exchanged worried glances. But then, after an eternity, she spoke again.

"Nothing." Donna said, a smile spreading slowly across her still-shocked face. "Absolutely nothing is wrong. Oh, this is wizard. You are so gonna love this."

"Love what? What is it?"

"It's... Jenny."

Pain flashed across the Doctor's face before he could conceal it behind a neutral mask. Like Donna (up until recently), he had carefully avoided thinking about his daughter since her death. It was too painful to think about, because her death brought to mind those of his other children as well. Her death had torn him apart, those wounds were still too fresh and too deep to go poking around. So he pretended she didn't exist, although she was always there, burning at the back of his mind, a deep well of pain and missed chances.

"Who's Jenny?" Amy asked. "Oh no, not another one? Exactly how many are there you haven't told me about, Doctor?"

Donna shook her head. "Oh, there's tons more of us he doesn't talk about, but that's beside the point. You see, Jenny was his daughter."

Amy's eyes widened. "You had a daughter?"

The Doctor nodded, not looking at either of his companions, but somewhere far away. "Yeah. I did. But she... she died. Took a bullet that was meant for me." His voice broke.

But Donna, of course, wasn't having any of that.

"But that's just the thing, Doctor..." she said, her grin getting even wider. 'She's... she's still alive!"

The Doctor focused his eyes on her, disbelief and hope battling each other in his eyes. "What?"

"You were right." she almost laughed. "You said that day on Messaline that she was too much like you. Martha and I... we both thought you were just in denial. And maybe you were. But that doesn't make you any less right. She must have regenerated after we left. She must have regenerated, and been looking for you ever since."

"But Donna... how do you know?"

"Because, Doctor.... _she gave me the book_."

Tears had formed in his eyes again. Hers, too. Donna continued. "I don't know how... but she knew I didn't remember you. She must have planned the whole thing out. Slashed my tires so I'd have to take the Tube, and when I did... she was waiting for me. She even talked to me for a while, about that book. And when she left, she left the book behind with me, and... oh, she must have done something to the train. To give me time to read it. God, she's so much like you, it's freaky."

"Jenny..." the Doctor whispered. "She's..."

"Alive! She's alive and well, and she's just the same as the day she was born. Well, generated, I guess. And she saved me, Doctor. You should... you should be proud of her."

That was it. The Doctor's eyes welled up, and he pulled Donna into another hug. He was shaking just as much as he'd been on Midnight, but this time, it was with shock and happiness instead of trauma and terror.

"She's alive. Jenny..."

"And just as much like you as you said." Donna laughed. "She saved my life. Nothing more Doctor-ish than that, is there?"

The Doctor made a sound that could have either been a single laugh or a sob. Donna couldn't really tell. But, looking over his shoulder at Amy and Wilf, both beaming, she decided that it was okay either way. After a while, he regained his composure somewhat and stepped back.

"Donna," the Doctor said, his face still rather flushed with emotion. "Thank you so much. Just knowing she's safe out there somewhere..." his voice trailed off. He looked at her intently. "Do you want to come with us?"

She sighed. She'd known from the moment she'd first seen him that this would be the hard part. "You know I can't." She said. "I've got Shaun now. I... I need him. You know I'd love to go galavanting off to... Zorcon Sector Four and it's singing cacti-"

"How do you know about those?"

"Time Lord mind? Metacrisis? You were there for that part, weren't you, Doctor?"

"Oh, yeah. Sorry."

"Anyways," Donna continued loudly. "I just can't. Besides, you have Amy now. I really don't think you could handle the both of us." She grinned as the Doctor made a face, trying to imagine life on the TARDIS with his two feisty friends. "I thought so."

The Doctor sighed, then looked hopeful. "But you'll stay in touch?"

"Of course I will!" Donna cried. "You think after all that I'm letting you slip away again? Not a chance. We've been separated way too many times, and if you think I'm going to let that happen, you've got another think coming, got that Spaceman? Now give me your mobile number!"

Amy took her phone out of her pocket. "Will this do?"

Donna nodded. "Universal signal, right?"

"Yeah."

"Brilliant, isn't it? I bloody love Time Lords!"

Amy chuckled and they exchanged numbers.

"There." Donna said, flipping her phone shut. "You're not getting away that easy again."

Amy looked at her. "I guess this is it, then." She half smiled. "It was really great meeting you."

"You, too." Donna took the younger woman in a brief hug. "Just a word of advice before you go..."

"Yeah?"

"Don't let him go off anywhere on his own. Seriously. Even a bloody field trip will turn into a life-or-death situation with him there. Has he told you about Midnight? Well, just don't leave him alone. He'll get himself killed. Or, almost killed. And if you see a glowing hand in a jar, unless it's an absolute, surrounded-by-Daleks crisis, do not touch it!'

Amy blinked, looking thoroughly confused, but nodded nonetheless. The Doctor moved forward to hug Wilf, saying something to him in a hushed voice before moving back to Donna. He pulled her in one more time, hugging her tight.

"Thank you."

"Oh, anything for my favourite Martian."

He laughed.

"Keep in touch."

"I will."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

"And let me know when you find Jenny. So I can thank her, too."

They broke away, and Donna saw the Doctor smiling, really smiling like she hadn't seen him smile since that day in the TARDIS when they'd all been gathered there, towing back the Earth. It seemed like he hadn't smiled like that in a long time.

Then he turned and followed Amy back into the TARDIS. The door closed, the engine whirred to life, and just before it dematerialized, the Doctor poked his head out the door and called out a final goodbye.

"Goodbye, Wilf." He called. "Keep an eye out for us."

"Oh, don't you worry, Doctor. I will!"

"See you, Donna!" Amy called from inside.

"Bye." She whispered, her eyes filling up again.

And then the light at the top of the police box turned on, getting more and more transparent until it was gone completely. Wilf walked across the hilltop and put an arm around her, and they looked up at the sky.

"Are you alright?" he asked her.

She thought about it for a second. "Yeah." She answered. And like she really meant it.

"Ready to go in?"

She nodded. "Do you think Mum will mind if I borrow the car to get home?"

Wilf smiled mischievously. "Not if she never finds out about it."

Donna grinned. "So I actually have your permission to steal Mum's car?"

Wilf shrugged. "All I know is I've had quite enough excitement for one day. I need to get to bed. Minnie and I are going out for dinner tomorrow, and I need my beauty sleep."

She waggled her eyebrows. "Oooh, gotta look nice for Minnie. You two are really coming along there, aren't you, Gramps?"

"Not a word of this to Sylvia."

"Obviously."

They trudged down the hill to the front porch of the house.

"Goodnight, Gramps."

'Night, Donna." He gave her a hug. "It's good to have you back, my darling."

"Good to be back."

She got in her Mum's car, the one she'd parked just a few feet away from the TARDIS almost two years ago, and smiled. She drove all the way home, listening to the radio, singing along to every song that came on.

And when she got home, she locked the door behind her, changed into some comfy PJs, and crawled into bed next to Shaun, who was reading a mystery novel.

"Hey." He said, upon seeing her. "The firm called. They said you never showed up for work today. I just told them you'd taken a sick day, on account of the tires...." He noticed her face brighten up when he mentioned the tires. "Donna? Are you alright?"

"Love, I'm better tonight than I've been in a long time." She sighed. "Tell you all about it tomorrow."

And with that, she rolled over, turned off her light, and slept an easy, dreamless sleep for the first time in months, knowing that when she woke up it would be to a universe that finally made sense.

* * *

**And with that cheesy closer, I must say FIN.**

**Can't believe I finished this thing. It's been hovering in the back of my mind for a while now, so I figured I may as well get it out there. Leave a review and you shall be rewarded with many bananas :)**


End file.
